Your source for the latest news on Rutgers football, basketball, and other sports

Menu

PISCATAWAY – Somehow, the effects of the nightmarish 2012-13 season managed to linger long enough to damage the Rutgers women’s basketball team’s bid to make it to the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

Rutgers was not selected Monday night for the NCAA Tournament despite finishing in fourth in the American Athletic Conference and with a 22-9 overall record. Instead, Rutgers plans to enter the WNIT and likely will host a game at the Louis Brown Athletic Center against a regionally-based opponent either Thursday or Friday night.

“The team was very silent. Very quiet. No doubt hurt. Stung,” coach C. Vivian Stringer said of her team’s reaction after watching the Selection Show on ESPN together in its locker room. “But at the end day, as we were sharing with them, I don’t have that kind of control. We are judged by the body of our work.”

A soft non-conference schedule – designed to build early confidence in a senior-less team – combined with a one-year stint in the top-heavy American Athletic Conference hurt Rutgers, which had the No. 51 RPI and a strength of schedule ranked 80th by realtimerpi.com and 91st by rpiratings.com.

“My belief is that we were so fragile given what happened last year that we took a bet and it didn’t work,” said Stringer, whose Hall of Fame reputation includes a willingness to forego easy wins in favor of playing tough competition. “No one can accuse me of backing down. That’s not it. I bet on something. It looked like it was good until we lost focus. It took one slip.”

It marks the first time since Stringer’s first two seasons at the helm – 1995-96 and 1996-97 – that Rutgers has missed the Big Dance in two straight seasons. According to a graphic shown during the Selection Show broadcast, Rutgers was not even part of the committee’s “First Four Out.”

Rutgers received eight points – the 28th-highest total in the country – in the Associated Press Top 25 poll released Monday afternoon. Its status as a NCAA Tournament participant was not in doubt – even with losses to sub-.500 opponents Memphis and Massachusetts – until a regular-season-ending home loss to South Florida combined with some automatic bid-stealing around the nation.

“It was an expensive lesson to be learned,” Stringer said, “because in any of our losses barring Connecticut (three times) and Louisville (two times) it’s obvious that we could have blown them out, and for whatever reason we lost focus and just came up short.”

Stringer has never coached in the WNIT, which began in its current form in 1994, as Rutgers withdrew from consideration last season after finishing at 16-14 with a litany of injuries.

“It is important that we learn from that so that we never find ourselves waiting in anticipation and hoping that we have that,” Stringer said. “That has to be something that they learn because it isn’t something that they’ve experienced.”

Both Seton Hall (18-13) and Princeton (20-8) are likely to be part of the WNIT, which was expected to announce its bracket late Monday night. Rutgers opened this season by beating Princeton and lost to Seton Hall last season after winning the previous 12 meetings.

The WNIT consists of 64 teams, half of which earned automatic berths and half of which are at-large entrants. Second-round games will be played March 22-25 followed by the Sweet 16 (March 26-28), the Elite Eight (March 29-30), the national semifinals (April 2-3), and the championship at 3 p.m. April 5.

“I’m grateful that we have an opportunity to have all of them back,” Stringer said of her players. “I’m looking forward to playing in the WNIT and I’m looking for us to play a high-intensity, highly motivated game that being the groundwork for the future in terms of what we’re trying to do.”

Stringer would have earned a $10,000 bonus for leading Rutgers to the NCAA Tournament and additional bonuses for each of its victories.

Stringer’s contract, which is worth more than $1 million per year and was signed after a run to the 2007 NCAA Tournament final, is due to expire June 30. But Stringer has said that she is in the “final stages” of negotiating a contract extension with athletics director Julie Hermann, who has publicly pledged her support for having the legend lead the upcoming transition into the Big Ten.

Hermann met with the team prior to the Selection Show and offered an eye-opening detailed explanation of the effects of RPI and scheduling, according to Stringer. The AAC only sent two teams to the NCAA Tournament – top-ranked and undefeated Connecticut and Louisville, which received a No. 3 seed despite being ranked No. 4 nationally.

“You have no chance of getting anything out of that,” Stringer said. “Be that as it may we’re on our way (to the Big Ten). There weren’t enough schools to get that done. The credit they gave our conference wasn’t very good. I’m not trying to put the NCAA down at all. I think we learned a lesson both ways.”

About Ryan Dunleavy

Ryan Dunleavy has covered Rutgers athletics for more than a decade, dating back to his days as a student at his alma mater. He became New Jersey Press Media’s Rutgers women’s basketball beat writer in 2009 and Rutgers football beat writer in 2013. Since joining the staff in 2004, the Morris County native also has covered the NFL, MLB, NBA, the Somerset Patriots and high school sports.

Rutgers returns home to host Ohio State and #OperationScarlet. No, I don’t understand, either. Around the college football world Attendance. People do take notice. There is actually a Twitter account that literally ridicules USF Football’s attendance. The Bulls, former opponents in the old Big East, play at Raymond James Stadium, a pro venue. And this […]

The timing is bad with Ohio State coming to town As we reported yesterday, starting cornerback, Blessuan Austin, who is arguably the best player on the Rutgers defense, is out for the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in Saturday’s loss to Nebraska. Head Coach Chris Ash discussed the news at his weekly […]